Berry and Sour Cream Pie

The Husband and I are not so much of dessert people, but tried making this one lazy Saturday, it was good and so am confidently sharing the recipe with the dessert enjoying folks out there....

This is for a 9 inch pie dish.

Ingredients:

1 cup sour cream
2 tbsps all purpose flour
3/4 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla essence
1/4 tsp salt
1 egg. beaten
2 1/2 cups berries (i used a mixture of blueberry,rasberry and black berry)
Short crust pastry, cooked (the recipe to which i have mentioned in the tarte tatin recipe, since i used the same pie dish the proportions mentioned in that recipe will be good for this as well.)

Crumble topping

3 tbsps Macademia Nut chopped ( i am sure you can also use walnut, pecan,hazel nut etc)
3 tbsps softened butter
3 tbsps all purpose flour

Method:

Beat sour cream, flour, sugar, vanilla, salt and egg until smooth. Gently fold in the berries and once incorporated pour it into the cooked pie crust and bake for 25 minutes at 190 deg C

For the crumble:

Combine all the ingredients and mix well. At 25 minutes, sprinkle the crumble mixture on top of the cooked pie, return to the oven and cook for 10 minutes more.

Bon appetit -  Mimi

Shrimp Paella

So one evening i was entertaining (or torturing as he would put it) the Husband with all the crazy things fifi and i were upto when i was in B'glore.  So i happened to tell him about this time when both of us after dinner retired to her work room (which is also my room) well we went into the room swearing that we had LOADS of work and that we would probably be working through the night.  The next day being a Monday there was no way we could avoid doing this.  So fifi settles onto her comp and i open my laptop and casually tell her," dude we have to watch Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara"...as as many of our stories go...everything went downhill from there....watched the entire movie...discussed the movie....and fell asleep to that feeling of being SCROOOOOD!!!!!! Well for every such faffing story we also have a work together in companionable silence story....well will save that for another day.  So anyway the movie if you have not watched it is all about spain amongst other things and one of the protagonists makes paella in the movie...so that caught my fancy and ended up making it for din din that night.  So here goes....

Ingredients:

500 gms Shrimp
2 Slices of bacon cut into cubes (small cubes)
2 medium sized onions chopped
2 cloves od garlic
Pinch of Saffron( i made it once without it and it is fine if you do not have this handy)
1/2 tsp red chilli powder (depending on the fierceness of your powder or your tatse)
1/4 tsp of nutmeg powder
2 cups of chicken stock
1 cup of red wine
1 cup of rice
1 green,red or yellow pepper thinly cut into round slices (cut the top off and scoop out the seeds)
1 tomato cut into thin round slices
Lime to sqeeze
Parsley/Coriander leaves to garnish
Salt to taste

Method:

This recipe should not be stirred around much and the pepper,tomato and shrimps needs to be set around the dish, so it is best to use a flat bottomed pan.

Heat oil in the pan and saute the garlic and bacon. Once the aroma rises and just before the garlic turns colour, add the onions and cook till golden brown (but not carmelized). Stir in the chilli powder, nutmeg,salt and saffron (optional).  Add rice to this and stir for a couple of minutes.  Add the chicken stock and wine, making sure the rice is nicely settled into the liquid.  Once this is done cover and cook for 15 minutes.  After this uncover the pan and set the peppers, tomato and shrimp around the dish. Squeeze lime over this and sprinkle the parsley.  Cover and cook again till rice has absorbed all the liquid and the shrimp is cooked through.

Bon Appetit Mimi.

Pork Chops....

Bad, BAD Fifi !! All that talk about food and no pictures or recipes!
Okay, in my defense, the Prawn Peera got over before I could take a picture! And since I have this strange allergy that makes my hands itch like CRAZY if I clean prawns - no, no, I SWEAR they do! Mimi cleans prawns for me usually - if I do them myself, I have to do it with surgical gloves!! So yeah, basically, the prawn thing finished before I took pictures! In response to Kavita's comment (the ONLY one we've got in a loooong time!), here's the recipe for pork chops..... of the 2 pictures, the better picture was taken on another occasion when we made this, and the other (not-so-great) picture was taken when we made this last week. Now, there's one thing I've changed (for the better!) in this recipe - I've used a pressure cooker - and the meat was yummmm! Super tender and practically falling off the bone!

Fifi's Pork Chops
Ingredients - Marinade:
Pork Chops
Garlic paste
Soy sauce
Salt
Pepper
Chilli Flakes
Vinegar (about 1 tbsp)

Ingredients - Sauce:
Onions
Finely chopped garlic
Honey
Tomato - chilli sauce (I use Maggi Hot and Sweet)
Soy sauce
Star Anise
Salt, pepper, chilli flakes.

Method:
- Marinade the pork chops in a mixture of the marinade ingredients for a few hours.
- Pan fry the chops to seal in the flavour - not too much, till just cooked on the surface. (at this point, do NOT throw away the rest of the marinade mixture)
- In the same pan, after scraping away the burnt bits, if any, brown the onions and garlic. (you may want to drain some of the melted fat if there is too much)
- Add in the remaining marinade mixture and cook for about 8 minutes.
- Add in about 1/2 - 1 cup of the tomato-chilli sauce and about 1/2 cup of honey and 2 tbsp of soy sauce and mix. Let it cook for a bit. Throw in a few star anise flowers and a little water (or beer!) if you want a more runny sauce.
- Place the chops in a pressure cooker and pour the sauce over them to cover. If you need to add a little water to do that, you can, but you'll need to let the water evaporate later.
- Pressure cook for about 15 minutes. I left it to 20 and the meat was falling off the bone!
- Dry out excess water - the chops may have quite a bit of fat floating on top - which gets released when you cook the pork. You can skim off most of the fat... or make a paper cone out of kitchen tissue and let the tissue do its job!
- Serve with mashed potato and steamed buttered vegetables (which is what I did the first time! .... but this time it was "not-fried-crunchy-peas" and mashed potato!)


Bon Appetit from Fifi !